Fifth-generation fighter

A fifth-generation fighter is a jet fighter aircraft classification which includes major technologies developed during the first part of the 21st century. these are the most advanced fighters in operation. The characteristics of a fifth-generation fighter are not universally agreed upon, and not every fifth-generation type necessarily has them all; however, they typically include stealth, low-probability-of-intercept radar, agile airframes with supercruise performance, advanced avionics features, and highly integrated computer systems capable of networking with other elements within the battlespace for situational awareness and C³ capabilities.
the combat-ready fifth-generation fighters are the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which entered service with the United States Air Force in December 2005; the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which entered service with the United States Marine Corps in July 2015; the Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-35A, which are both in service with the People's Liberation Army Air Force beginning in March 2017 and September 2025 respectively; Shenyang J-35, which entered service with People's Liberation Army Navy in September 2025; and the Sukhoi Su-57, which entered service with the Russian Air Force on 25 December 2020. Other national and international projects are in various stages of development.

Characteristics

The emerging generation of advanced fighter aircraft in the first decades of the 21st century has come to be known as the fifth generation. The defining characteristics of such a fifth-generation fighter are not universally agreed upon, and not every fifth-generation type necessarily has them all. Some generation counts include more than five leading up to the emerging new generation.
File:Su-57 & F-35 at Aero India 2025.jpg|thumb|The Su-57 and F-35 at Aero India 2025.
Whereas previous fourth-generation fighters emphasized maneuverability and close-range dogfighting, typical fifth-generation characteristics include:

Stealth, with munitions stored internally.
High maneuverability, which tends to include short-field capabilities.
Supercruise, i.e. prolonged supersonic cruise without the use of reheat.
Advanced avionics, including low-probability-of-intercept radar.
Networked data fusion, enabling situation awareness on the battlefield.
Multirole capabilities, such as battlefield C³.

In order to minimize their radar cross-section, most fifth-generation fighters use chines instead of standard leading edge extensions and lack canards, though the Sukhoi T-50 has engine intake extensions that seem to function somewhat like canards, and the Chengdu J-20 designers have chosen the agility enhancements of canards in spite of their poor stealth characteristics. They all have twin canted vertical tails also to minimize side RCS. Most fifth-generation fighters with supermaneuverability achieve it through thrust vectoring.
They all have internal weapon bays in order to avoid high RCS weapon pylons, but they all have external hardpoints on their wings for use on non-stealthy missions, such as the external fuel tanks the F-22 carries when deploying to a new theater.
All fifth-generation fighters have a high percentage of composite materials, in order to reduce RCS and weight.

Software-defined aircraft

All revealed fifth-generation fighters use commercial off-the-shelf main processors to directly control all sensors to form a consolidated view of the battlespace with both onboard and networked sensors, while previous-generation jet fighters used federated systems where each sensor or pod would present its own readings for the pilot to combine in their own mind a view of the battlespace. The F-22A was physically delivered without synthetic aperture radar or situation awareness infra-red search and track. It will gain SAR later through software upgrades. However, any flaw in these complex software systems can disable supposedly unrelated aircraft systems, and the complexity of a software-defined aircraft can lead to a software crisis with additional costs and delays. By the end of 2013, the biggest concern with the F-35 program was software, especially the software required for data fusion across the many sensors.
Sukhoi calls their expert system for sensor fusion the artificial intelligence of the Su-57. Flight tests of their integrated modular avionics started in 2017 on a fiber optic networked multicore processor system. The system is not without faults. In December 2020, a malfunction with the computer flight control system caused the first production Su-57 to crash.
An automatic software response to an overheat condition apparently has contributed to a crash of an F-22. Issues with the avionics also contributed to an F-35A crash in 2020.
The F-35 uses software-defined radio systems, in which common middleware controls field-programmable gate arrays. Col. Arthur Tomassetti has said that the F-35 is a "software intensive airplane and software is easy to upgrade, as opposed to hardware".
In order to ease the addition of new software features, the F-35 has adopted a kernel and application separation of security responsibilities.
Steve O'Bryan of Lockheed Martin has said that the F-35 may gain the ability to operate UAVs through a future software upgrade. The USN is already planning to place its Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike system under the control of a manned aircraft, to act as a flying missile magazine.

Situational awareness

The combination of stealthy airframes, stealthy sensors, and stealthy communications is designed to allow fifth-generation fighters to engage other aircraft before those targets are aware of their presence. Lt. Col. Gene McFalls of the USAF has said that sensor fusion will feed into inventory databases to precisely identify aircraft at a distance.
Sensor fusion and automatic target tracking are projected to give the fifth-generation jet fighter pilot a view of the battlespace superior to that of legacy AWACS aircraft that may be forced back from the front lines by increasing threats. Therefore, tactical control could be shifted forwards to the pilots in the fighters. Michael Wynne, former Secretary of the United States Air Force, has suggested elimination of the Boeing E-3 Sentry and Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint STARS in favor of more F-35s, simply because so much effort is being made by the Russians and Chinese to target these platforms that are built to commercial airliner standards.
However, the more powerful sensors, such as AESA radar which is able to operate in multiple modes at the same time, may present too much information for the single pilot in the F-22, F-35 and Su-57 to adequately use. The Sukhoi/HAL FGFA offered a return to the two-seat configuration common in fourth generation strike fighters, but this was rejected over cost concerns.
There is ongoing research to apply track-before-detect across sensor fusion in the core CPU to allow fifth-generation fighters to engage targets that no single sensor has by itself detected. Probability theory is used to determine "what data to believe, when to believe and how much to believe".
These sensors produce too much data for the onboard computers to fully process so sensor fusion is achieved by comparing what is observed against preloaded threat libraries that contain known enemy capabilities for a given region. Items that do not match known threats are not even displayed.

Combat cloud

has suggested that fifth-generation jet fighters will operate together in a "combat cloud" along with future unmanned combat aircraft, and Michael Manazir has suggested that this might come as quickly as loading a UCLASS with AMRAAMs to be launched at the command of an F-35.

History

United States

Prototypes and concept demonstrators built by American manufacturers included the Lockheed YF-22 – 1990, Northrop YF-23 – 1990 for the Advanced Tactical Fighter program, Boeing Bird of Prey – 1996, McDonnell Douglas X-36 – 1997, the Lockheed Martin X-35 – 2000 and Boeing X-32 – 2001 for the Joint Strike Fighter program.
Previous-generation radar low observable aircraft, also referred to as stealth aircraft, such as the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit bomber and Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk ground attack aircraft were not designed for air to air combat, lacking the active electronically scanned array radars, low probability of intercept data networks, aerial performance, and air-to-air weapons necessary to engage other aircraft. In the early 1970s, various American design projects identified stealth, speed, and maneuverability as key characteristics of a next-generation air-to-air combat aircraft. This led to the Request for Information for the Advanced Tactical Fighter project in May 1981, which resulted in the F-22.
The USMC is leveraging the USAF's experience with "fifth-generation air warfare" in the F-22, as they develop their own tactics for the F-35.
According to Lockheed Martin in 2004, the only fifth-generation jet fighter then in operational service was their own F-22 Raptor. Lockheed Martin uses "fifth-generation fighter" to describe the F-22 and F-35 fighters, with the definition including "advanced stealth", "extreme performance", "information fusion" and "advanced sustainment". For unknown reasons, their definition no longer includes supercruise capability, which has typically been associated with the more advanced modern fighters, but which the F-35 lacks. Lockheed Martin attempted to trademark the term "5th generation fighters" in association with jet aircraft and structural parts thereof, and has a trademark for a logo with the term.
The definition of the term fifth-generation fighter from Lockheed Martin has been criticized by companies whose products do not conform to these particular specifications, such as Boeing and Eurofighter, and by other commentators such as Bill Sweetman: "it is misleading to portray the F-22 and F-35 as a linear evolution in fighter design. Rather, they are a closely related pair of outliers, relying on a higher level of stealth as a key element of survivability – as the Lockheed YF-12 and Mikoyan MiG-25, in the 1960s, relied on speed and altitude."
The United States Navy and Boeing have placed the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in a "next generation" fighter category along with the F-22 and F-35, as the Super Hornet has a "fifth-generation" AESA radar, modest radar cross-section reductions and sensor fusion. A senior USAF pilot has complained about fifth-generation claims for the Super Hornet: "The whole point to fifth generation is the synergy of stealth, fusion and complete situational awareness. The point about fifth-generation aircraft is that they can do their mission anywhere – even in sophisticated integrated air defense environments. If you fly into heavy IADS with a great radar and sensor fusion, but no stealth, you will have complete situational awareness of the guy that kills you." Michael "Ponch" Garcia of Raytheon has said that the addition of their AESA radars to the Super Hornet provides "90 percent of your fifth-generation capability at half the cost." Additionally, a top Boeing official has called their newest 4.5 generation fighters "stealth killers".